


Out of Genre

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Castle
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-25
Updated: 2009-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:17:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, I don't think they really want brains," Richard decided, passing the binoculars to Beckett. "Where's their motivation? That's the sort of plot-hole I'd expect from a pulp editor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Genre

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 Apocalyptothon

He'd never seriously contemplated horror as a genre.

Not that it wasn't his thing entirely -- he did appreciate the entire B-Movie Genre, from abominable snowmen to the creatures of the black lagoon -- but every horror movie, particularly the zombie set, followed the same trite formula. There was a group of survivors, and maybe it picked up with them before it all went wrong, or just after, but there they were, all alone yet banded together against the incomprehensible evil milling about on the streets in search of their brains.

And seriously, there was no reason, none, for zombies to be expected to go after brains. None. He'd eaten cow brains once on a book tour. They didn't taste that great, and he really preferred a good melt in the mouth filet mignon.

But the in-edibility of brains wasn't going to incline him to unbarricade his front door, and no one was actually discussing the possibility of doing anything other than passing the binoculars from person to person to watch the scene down below.

"You know, I don't think they really want brains," Richard decided, passing the binoculars to Beckett. "Where's their motivation? That's the sort of plot-hole I'd expect from a pulp editor."

"They're zombies." Beckett took them, and then readjusted them, as if he had no idea at all what he was doing with them. "Do you have a telescope? From up here it looks like they're just rioting."

"Is that rioting in the normal New York, _'we're in line for something new and expensive'_ way? We can have ooh, two or three of those outside in a week." He glanced over at his mother, who was well on her way through a bottle of something. "Perhaps we should send Mother down. She is, after all, a Life Coach, and I can't think of anyone the undead might need to see more."

"I have a telescope." Alexis wasn't anywhere near the windows, and Richard just wasn't going to push it. He was just glad she'd been home doing homework when he'd gotten the first whiff that things were going very wrong, very fast. She unfolded herself from the sofa, and skirted the edge of the living room, probably to get it.

There really was no assuring her that the world wasn't coming to some kind of something, once he'd watched Beckett try to put Kevin down like a rabid dog after he'd torn a chunk out of Javier's neck.

"It's in my room, darling," his mother called out, peering at her glass. "There's a very handsome young man in the building opposite, who never quite seems to get around to buying a longer robe. Really Richard, do stop with the awful puns. If we are facing some sort of doomsday, we could at least do it without the benefit of your purple prose."

"I like to think of my prose as a delicate shade of lilac, at most," Castle answered. "So, see any clues down there? Anything that might hint where it came from?"

"Yeah, if I squint, I think there's a man standing on the corner with a sign that says _'Russia did it'_." She leaned back from the window, and lowered the binoculars. Ouch, that was a scalding look.

"I just waiting for the -- how did you put it? -- _'trained detective with experience in actual investigations'_ to get her groove on," he said, "Rather than the amateurs, who incidentally are the one's surviving here."

"Do I look like a Medical Examiner to you? This isn't a whodunit, this is..." She waved a hand towards the window. "It came on overnight. Can a virus even move that fast?"

Richard turned to the book shelf. "When I was writing _A Touch of Death_ \-- not one of the Dirk Storm series, I might add -- I did some research on biological contaminants. If that's what it is. Some of the real nasties can spread that quickly. Some of the man-made ones are incredibly contagious and spread like wildfire." He flicked open the book, finding the words he wrote several years before, still looking crisp and new. It had seemed a rich source for a story at the time. Right now, real life wasn't anywhere near as fun.

"Then how do we know that we're all right?" Well, it was a pointed question, but it was also one that he almost wished Beckett hadn't asked. "Going by the movies, we're okay, but those are movies, not... reality."

"If it's airborne, then either we're naturally immune or we haven't shown symptoms yet."

"Don't listen to him Detective," Martha said returning with a top up for her drink and with Alexis and the telescope. "He likes to pretend he is an authority on anything he has researched for a book. Can you believe he did a book about a murder on Broadway? Oh, I nearly died at the inaccuracies."

"He totally failed to understand what a stage manager does," Alexis offered, while awkwardly bringing in the telescope. "Here. But I don't want to look."

Richard glanced at his daughter. He didn't want her to look either. He wasn't even sure that he wanted to look himself, but if Beckett was doing it, then he would be letting the side down. Letting the guys down, even if he was pretty sure the guys were now ravening versions of the undead. "I think that's the best idea. You can plot our dramatic escape, how about that?" he asked in an altogether too bright and too humoring tone that sounded wince worthy to his own ears.

"It involves the roof, and the CIA's skyhook system." Beckett took the telescope from her, and Alexis made her retreat back to the sofa. "Why do we still have electricity?"

"It's possible that the power plants are okay. That they haven't been affected yet," Beckett said, setting up the tripod legs. "If Indian Point has a problem, we're more than screwed, so I really wouldn't think about it."

"Well, if Richard starts frothing at the mouth and stumbling around, we'll know that either he's spoken to his ex, or he got it, and therefore we might as well get completely drunk for the apocalypse," Martha commented. "I have some very good champagne here for just such an occasion."

"You have apocalyptic champagne?" That momentarily distracted him from setting up the telescope.

"As if I would be unprepared for anything," his mother declared grandly.

"At least I'm not going to be bored," Beckett snipped, moving to look out the window through the telescope.

"Oh, wow. I hope they've lost the ability to work elevators."

"Let me see," he said, immediately reaching to push her out of the way and receiving a patented Detective Beckett glare of doom. In his drafts of Nikki Heat, he had described it as _'a diamond drill of a piercing stare, guaranteed to bore its way the defenses of any criminal.'_ He wasn't sure if she would like that if she saw it or not.

"You can remember how to ask politely." She shifted out of the way, still not moving the telescope.

Richard smirked a little. This was familiar almost flirting territory. "Pretty please with whipped cream and a cherry on top. " He paused a moment. "A lot of whipped cream."

"Hah hah." She ceded it to him, but stayed lurking. "Tell me what you think of what's down there."

He peered through the lens, and it was a little like watching a bad remake of a horror movie.

They were shambling down there, clawing at each other, falling over things, in some cases, lying twitching in the middle of the road. Whether it was a coping mechanism or not, the writer's voice in his head insisted on trying to turn it into descriptors of lurid schlock prose, while all he could say was, "That's really not good."

"My first guess wouldn't be that they're operating at a high intelligence level." No, not when they were milling, had probably followed the scent of food out the first open door.

Food. He wondered what they'd do when they ran out.

"If it's a virus, and man-made..." Alexis said from where she was doggedly sitting looking away from the window, "Then you know it'll die off."

"Is that right?" Martha said. "Listen to your daughter, Richard. I think the brains skipped a generation."

"So, one of my grandparents on your side was a genius, right? Because I think it skipped two." He held up the fingers as if it might bolster his argument, and Beckett slapped his shoulder.

"I think that it dying off is the best thing we can hope for. And staying up here, where it's safe."

"Then, we shall have a Castle of Castles, and pull up the drawbridge, stock up on boiling oil and supplies and see if we can find out what the hell is going on," he answered.

"I vote for raiding next door for food," Martha said. "He has a fantastic wine collection."

Alexis looked worried. "Isn't that, well, isn't that breaking and entering?"

It was almost predictable that everyone turned to look at Beckett. "At least wait a day. He might be _in_ his apartment."

"Well, Richard dear, did you bother to put the emergency brake on the elevator and block the stairs?"

"You really think zombies are going to use the elevator?" he asked. "Wait, wait what am I thinking. That's exactly the sort of thing that would happen. Dramatically."

Beckett started to stand up from her crouch. "Castle, you come with me, we'll block the stairs."

"No turning into zombies while we're gone," Richard admonished his family. "Or any other type of the undead."

Alexis half-smiled. "You know those times when you want me to tell you if you make an inappropriate joke? That was one of them."

"I shall hold back from my punch line about your grandmother," he promised.

"Very funny, Richard." His mother at least got up to move to lock the door behind them, though, which was thoughtful of her. Beckett had her gun with her, which was more than Richard was armed with. He was going to have to rely on his wits alone. Perhaps his rapier like wit would be enough, but he'd never really felt anything more desperate and useless in his life. Just to be on the safe side he did pick up one of fencing swords, ignoring Beckett's slightly questioning look.

She shook her head, and Martha held the door open for them long enough to step out into the hallway. He was struck by how eerily quiet it was, and yet.

It was always that quiet, except that the context had changed.

Beckett was gesturing that she would go first and he felt he had to say. "I do have a sword you know," in a sort of whisper.

"And I have a gun, Castle. This is not the time to be chivalrous." She was still a cop, even if there wasn't going to be much left of the NYPD.

"Everyone knows you need to behead zombies. Hey, we need machetes," he pointed out as he positioned himself to cover her side.

"We can raid your kitchen later." They started out into the hallway, with Beckett leading. "Do you know where the emergency stop on the elevator is? Because I doubt we'll have power much longer anyway."

"You know what I love about you?" Castle said. "Your boundless optimism. Right now we don't go anywhere until things calm down. Then I guess we plan what to do."

"You know how in high school, they made you read those the world has ended novels? Mid-cold war... dreck?" She started towards the stairwell, gun held down at the ready.

"Oh, nothing like a nuclear winter as a plot device suitable for impressionable young teenagers," he answered. "Hey, I didn't think you read novels?"

"I have." She sounded defensive, and gave him a dirty look over her shoulder. "Those were assignments."

"So you think we're going to go the communist idyll way or the _I Am Legend_ way," Castle asked. "Which, you should know is totally different in the book than the film. They completely missed the point."

"That he was the legend, yeah." She pushed the door to the stairwell open, and seemed satisfied with the fact that there was nothing behind it. "Get me that bench."

He heaved the bench over, which was heavier than it looked no matter what the scornful look he was receiving implied. He did need to ask though, where Alexis wasn't in earshot. "You think we're going to get out of this?"

"I don't know. I'm going to do everything I can think of. I think we'll be best served by not doing anything rash right now." Blocking the stairwell door, which swung outward and wouldn't get past that bench, was a start.

"Zombies, Beckett. Good old-fashioned zombies," he felt he had to point out. "Ravening. That's a good word. There's a whole lot of ravening going on."

Beckett grunted at him, while she moved to help him push the bench into place. "We should get another one."

He looked around and dragged another open. "You think this will work? In the books someone always drops in from an air-vent or something."

"Richard. You saw them out there. They're not sentient in a way I'd define it." They were just milling, and battering at things, yeah. Of course, if any of them had muscle memory, maybe the elevator _was_ a risk.

"Yeah, but animals can be pretty sneaky if they're hungry," he pointed out. Hah, she'd called him by his first name. He'd mark that on the calendar. "For the sake of tradition, we should be at the mall for this sort of thing."

"Because being in an uncomplicated, open floor plan is where I want to be right now," she snorted. "I remember how that movie ended. I'll pass."

"If I was writing this, there would be a touching heartfelt moment at the impending end of everything," he said absently, as he dragged anything he could find over to Beckett. "Only it wouldn't be the real end of anything."

"If you were writing this, you'd have creatures coming out of the air vent," she countered, jamming the metal pot from what had always been a sort of cheap decorative plant up under the door handle.

"It's a genre expectation. The dramatic appearance of the horrifying where they shouldn't be," Richard answered. "My mother has perfected the art over the years."

"I'm sure you taught her well. Your mother is planning to spend the end of humanity drunk." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Not that I blame her."

"It's... Alexis. " That was the crux of the matter. Part of him was telling him Alexis was more likely to take care of him, but she was his daughter.

"What's Alexis?" And damn Beckett for not having her psychic abilities tuned in.

"Everything. How do I... How do I _save her_?" He was being completely serious now.

And she was looking at him with a tight, puzzled look, even as she stepped back to survey the doorway. "Okay, let's talk about this while we ruin the elevator."

The world could go to apocalyptic zombie hell and he would cheer it on if he lost Alexis. Ruining the elevator was a small price to pay, for any ideas at all. "Sure. I'm thinking letting a horde of zombies, ravening or otherwise, get to Alexis would be a big tick in the bad parent column."

"We could turn into them next," Beckett noted. "I think camping out in your apartment is the best option we have, and waiting."

He frowned at her. "Way to look on the bright side, Kate. I was hoping for something a little bit more sugar coated."

"I'm not going to do sugar coated." She moved towards the elevator, eying the buttons. that would either call one going up, or call one going down. "How do we get to the brake from here?"

"You think we need to get into the shaft?" he half asked. "It's either that or you shoot the cable loose... that would be pretty cool."

She was still giving him that _I think you're crazy_ look that he was pretty used to. Except this time, she wasn't telling him to stay in the car, or else. "We need to pry the doors open, then."

"Uh... let's see, crowbar, crowbar... uh, how about a chair leg.." He looked around heading towards his neighbor's door to get try and get it from there. Part way there, he stopped and glanced over at Beckett. "Did you hear something?"

It sounded, to Richard, like a wounded animal, which made him freeze up and maybe want to run at the same time. Fight or flight was a bitch when it couldn't figure out what it wanted to do. Beckett stepped away from the elevator, towards the door on the other side of the hall. There were only the two of them up there on that floor, but two doors were enough when you didn't know what was behind door number two. "Get back."

"I, uh..." Mr. Hendersen, his neighbor, was a bachelor, constantly on the lookout for a lady of the moment and never able to keep them. Not exactly the imposing type.

He reassessed that pretty sharply when there was a blur of moment and then there was this... thing clawing towards him.

It didn't actually look like Mr. Hendersen any more, and that was what was most striking about it, even more so than the fact that Beckett just started to unload an entire clip into its skull. The skin looked like it was sloughing off, but he wasn't sure how Mr. Hendersen was even moving. "Stay back, Castle!"

He tried to step back, nearly falling over, and fumbling for his epee, which no matter how decorative was the only thing he could put directly between himself and his apparently undead neighbor.

He flicked it out haphazardly, and more by luck than judgment, skewered his eye. "Ha!... Oh, eurgh."

As he drew the sword back, the eyeball came back on it like a grotesque pickled onion on a stick.

"Not helping, Castle!" Beckett stepped backwards, and she was reloading quickly, but Richard figured that the lack of pain that Hendersen was feeling was the real problem. They'd had the same issue back at the precinct.

He flicked the eyeball off the sword, hearing it splat rather disturbingly, and grabbed for the fire extinguisher, not to spray, but to swing hard and knock it back . "We need to ... get his head off, or, or stop the brain from working!"

He knocked zombie Hendersen back and tried to give her a clear shot.

"I don't think the brain is working." But she did fire again, and Hendersen went down.

For now, at least, and that was a disturbing thought. He wondered if a dead Zombie could rise again, because it was on their floor.

He stood a moment, staring warily at the body on the floor. "Well, that was... disturbing," he said unconsciously moving closer to Beckett.

"We need to get this out of the hallway." But where? Down the stairwell would just leave a messy trail of goo and blood up to them. The elevator, well. Same kind of issue.

"Okay, seriously, if we do some clean up, then there's going to be kitchen gloves, bleach and a whole lot of bin liners and this can go out of the window," Richard said.

She almost looked relieved. "Let's see if we can find any in his apartment." Right, because as long as they were dealing with that, he preferred keeping his mother and Alexis as hermetically sealed as possible.

In fact, there was a frantic knocking on the door. "Dad?! DAD?"

"We're okay sweetheart, just... don't come out, okay?" he called out as he stepped over the corpse.

"We're going to clean up first before we come back to the apartment, okay? So it's going to take a while," Kate called out, and that might help. That they were both still there, and alive and talking.

"Okay," Alexis said through the door. "Use a mask or something. That's what they do for contamination. And lots of anti-bacterial stuff. "

Trust his daughter to be the sensible one. "Okay!" he reassured. "You know that was something they never did in the movies," he said to Kate.

"Clean up?" She lifted her eyebrows at him, and moved to knock the door the rest of the way open with her gun. "When we finish, we're going to take anything that looks untouched, sterilize it, and then go back to the apartment."

He nodded, and the adrenalin had caught up now making him punchy and jittery. "Got it. Maybe the whole apocalypse could be fended off with sufficient hygiene."

It would be kinda funny if that were actually true. Well, in a grimly ironic way.

* * *

  
She wished she knew the symptoms.

If there were symptoms, never mind that she and Castle were probably okay. It had been a good eight hours since they'd come back into the apartment, and it was nightfall, which was making her nervy for no particular reason. After all, the zombies had already been up and roaming in broad daylight. She wasn't sure why it being dark outside would make it any worse.

She knew if she mentioned it, that Castle would come up with some writing based rationale for things at night generating fear. As far as she was concerned, it boiled down to one thing: it was dark.

Still, Castle had been surprisingly good during the crisis. She'd been waiting for the inevitable freak out, but it hadn't come yet, unless hovering near his daughter counted.

She didn't personally think it counted. Kate knew that people sought comfort in times of crisis, and one of Castle's comforts was doting on his daughter and trading verbal sniper fire with his mother. It was distracting and a little amusing, but everyone was quiet now. She suspected that the rest of them were sleeping or close to it, and she couldn't quite get there herself. Not yet.

Castle was scribbling things in a note pad, and by candlelight, he looked earnest and, well, almost attractive. Maybe. She caught herself wondering about what was happening out there in the world, and why out of all of them, they were okay.

"You know, we still have electricity," she whispered. It was the only reason she wasn't going to town on the ice-cream Alexis had mentioned was in the freezer.

"Atmosphere," Castle said, glancing up. "You don't have to whisper. Alexis won't hear a thing, she never does. She's learned to tune out mother."

"I assume that takes skill." She deadpanned it, and started to stand up from the chair she'd staked out as her own. It didn't help that her knee decided to pop.

"You have no idea," he said with a smirk. "If mother starts snoring, I want you to bear witness. She never believes me."

"Right. I'll do that." She felt her mouth pulling into a smirk back as she sat down with him at the table. "What are you writing?"

"I'm trying to make things into a plot plan," Castle said. "Helps me think."

"Are you going to share with the class?" She'd been thinking about movie endings, about book endings, about reality as people had suggested it would be and reality as it was happening. She still wondered how Hendersen had been exposed, and how he'd gotten to his apartment.

"Well, as you ask so nicely," Castle leaned forward. "Okay, if I was writing this as a plot, I don't believe in random, _'whoops everyone has become a zombie for no reason'_ plots. Call that a narrative? That's just cheap cop out. I'd want a reason. So if it's a virus, why don't we have it? If it's a toxin why don't we have it?"

"Is it a virus, or a bacteria?" Kate rested her elbows on the table. "They were biting. I wonder if it's blood borne."

"But then how would Hendersen get it?" Castle said. "Or, it was airborne and there some common factor that made us immune. Now, I was going to say genetic because three of us in the same family, but then there's you as well."

"My father was your father, too," she threw out snarkily. "Look, maybe he was bitten somewhere, came up to his apartment to hide and nurse his wounds, and turned into that."

"Logically though...would it have spread this fast? I mean, the station, everyone seemed to get it at once," Castle insisted. "Maybe the second generation of it is bite borne, which makes it man made most likely."

"So, there was an initial infection group, and then it's self-spreading?" That was logical, but then again, anything sounded logical coming from a man who made his living telling stories.

"There would have to be a dispersal point. I checked through my literary conventions for the end of the world, and we haven't had strange meteors, strange radiations, so that leaves organisms," Castle said. "You know I did that voodoo research? Well zombies in that religion are created with toxins, drugs and sensory deprivation. I nearly had the hero subjected to it...you know part of the suspense. There's no way that can perpetuate itself, though, so it's got to be some sort of virus or bacteria." He looked a bit smug at that.

"Which takes us back to me not being magically a medical examiner on the side, so we can't really come up with a cure or a treatment." Though she was jonesing for tamiflu just then.

"Yes, but!" Castle seemed almost animated. "We have to have something in common to have stopped us contracting it in the first place. Some we did that the others didn't do. A food, a drink, exposure to something. Something that all four of us have in common. This is always the key thing in the story. You've got to work it out, and then usually there's random sex."

Kate hoped that Castle felt the dirty look she was giving him. "Yeah, the eve of the end of humanity makes me horny."

"Every novel should have a romance subplot, even if it's unresolved sexual tension," Castle replied undaunted. "I could even use the line, _'Don't let me die a virgin'_."

"Your daughter is proof negative of that statement. As are your renowned exploits." She shifted, looking towards the window. Yeah, as many stories up as they were, she wasn't worried about creatures coming at them through the windows. Not people. "I wonder how many other pockets of people are waiting it out?"

Castle sighed. "It's true. Willing suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far. I reckon there would be a fair few. I mean, I didn't do anything really exotic recently. If there is a factor, then other people out there are likely to have experienced it."

"We had sushi the other night," she finally suggested. "But I really am hard pressed to believe that the California rolls are keeping our heads on straight."

"You know, they use the blowfish toxin to make zombies," Castle answered. "Wait, did I make you have the fugu?"

"Yeah, that would be the one piece of sushi that could not only possibly kill me, but set me back fifteen dollars at the same time." She was still a little hot about that, too, because she'd had octopus that was less rubbery.

"Okay, okay so wait..." Castle seemed animated. "Maybe it's not the same thing, but maybe having it, gave us a chance to form anti-whatevers. Something. Because I know mother's had it, and Alexis. It's a rite of passage. They say that the pufferfish build up an immunity to the tetrodotoxin."

"I thought it was a horrifying paralytic." She leaned back in her chair. "As you went to great lengths to describe to me before we went to Sushi Zen."

"Yes, well, yes," Castle seemed to be a bit deflated by that. "But maybe the trace amounts were just enough. It's a working theory at least."

They would probably never have anything but a working theory, so Kate sighed and nodded her head. "Right. Well, we can just... hope."

"A lot of people eat sushi," Castle said with that ridiculous optimism of his. "And, if people survive tetrodotoxin poisoning, then apparently you get better slowly over time. Maybe it is just a case of waiting it out."

Kate was never exactly sure how Castle managed to be so optimistic in the face of basic facts. He'd seen people's skin falling off, and she'd seen his neighbor, and all she could do was stare at him. "If it helps you sleep at night."

The look he gave her then seemed to say he was most likely not going to be sleeping much at all even as he shrugged. "How long do you think we can wait it out?"

"How much food and water do we have?" She'd filled the bathtubs up with water to save for drinking, much to Martha's protests. "I'm going to stay here until supplies run out, or we hear something over the emergency radio." The silence by itself had been deafening.

"We're pretty well stocked. Lots of canned food. Mr. Hendersen was a believer in that, even if some of the stuff looks like it's been there a long time." Castle shrugged. "If the refrigerator holds power, we've got enough for... well months maybe. Otherwise a couple of weeks or so?"

"Okay. We'll save the canned food for when the power goes." They'd make do after that, and she finally gave up on trying to look out the window. "We'll make jerky out of the rest of the meat. Or something. I wish the Internet was still up."

"Or TV. You'd think TV execs would eat sushi," Castle pointed out, and he was just looking at her now. Watching her.

"The execs probably don't know how to work the equipment," she countered. "I wonder about the electricity. If it's their version of keeping a refrigerator running."

"Surely they haven't got that much coherent thought?" Castle countered. "Maybe outside isn't so bad."

"If this isn't natural, maybe whoever set it into motion has that much coherent thought." She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Good point. A conspiracy! Always should be something for the heroes," Castle gestured to the both of them, "to thwart. "

It was hard not to lift her eyebrows at Castle. "Yeah. You keep thinking of that, I'll keep thinking of how to get us through this day to day."

He looked serious for a moment. "This is how I get through it day to day," he said.

With stories, right. Right. That was Richard Castle, and Kate was just going to have to deal with it. "Right. You should get some sleep, so we can both be coherent in the morning."

"And what are you going to do?" He asked looking at her carefully.

"Stare out the windows for a while." And maybe she'd sleep. Maybe.

"You need to rest too." He said getting up. "You can use my bed?" He gave an inappropriate grin.

Kate glanced over towards the sofa and the recliner, where Alexis and Martha were respectively ensconced. "I think I'll just stay around here."

"Pretty much what I was going to do, too," Castle said. "Fancy a nightcap?"

"I think I will." She would have said no, except she was already in his house. She was already there, and the world was already ending. A little booze could only help the situation.

* * *

  
Sometime in the middle of the night, the power finally went out.

The up side was that they all ended up sleeping late -- not that it mattered. His apartment was going to get pretty stuffy pretty quickly without air-conditioning, so Kate had helped him pop the windows open, even if it left his nerves on edge.

Being without power was one of those things that hit home what was happening, and he knew things were likely to become a little more difficult from now on in. They would have to think about food, but he figured they had two choices assuming his theory was remotely correct.

They could make a run for it out of the city, or they could hole up, out wait the worst of it, then look for other survivors. There were some stores where there would be weaponry, and survival gear. You could get solar powered this and that, all of that. That would work.

Beckett seemed to be of the theory that they should wait out the worst of it and then go looking, and he was inclined to agree. People were weird and panicky out there, and if they could last for a while, they might as well do what they could with the supplies they had. There was no point to go borrowing trouble just yet.

It was a great excuse to finish off the ice-cream.

"...So, you think we're okay because we ate sushi?" Alexis was saying with a slight hint of skepticism as she dug into her ice-cream breakfast

"Really, Richard?" his mother was even more skeptical. "How much did you have to drink."

"It made sense at the time," Kate admitted. "It might be true. We have no way of proving it or disproving it, so..."

"You know, he could make pretty much everything sound plausible," she said waving her hand. "It explains a lot about his childhood."

"It's as good an explanation as anything," Castle said with a slight smile.

He was trying not to watch Alexis too hard, even while she dug her spoon through the bowl idly. "What do we do now?"

"Well, there's always a board game?" he said as a suggestion. "I think we're back to making our own entertainment. We can go next door, see what might useful. There might be batteries and things."

And sure, she was asking long term. But he didn't have any answers to give her for long-term, and he wasn't going to lie and tell her everything was going to be all right. It wouldn't help -- but he could artfully dodge it. "I'll go with you," Kate volunteered.

"Well." Martha put down her bowl. "I think we might all join you. I don't want to stay here again listening to you and Detective Beckett battle zombies."

"That's right. I was really freaked out, Dad," Alexis reproached him.

"I'd just prefer if you both just... stayed here while we check to see if everything is all right." And while he could understand her stance, Beckett didn't quite understand how stubborn his family was.

"Richard would prefer me to stay out of his life," Martha answered waving a hand. "It doesn't happen."

Castle nodded. "Believe me, I've tried. Many, many times"

She looked like she was going to argue with them, just for a second, and then Beckett shook her head and scraped her spoon against the bottom of the bowl. "All right. Just get out of my way if I ask you to."

"I do that so well," Castle said. "We'll throw ourselves out of harm's way if it comes to that."

"Of course, darling." Martha agreed. "Excuse me while I just powder my nose. There's no need to go zombie hunting looking under par."

Alexis looked sideways at Kate, and then shook her head. "It's not like she's trying to get a date with them."

"I heard that," Martha said heading out the door. "Who knows, we might find another sushi eating survivor."

"It's a little early to think about continuing the human race." Beckett stood up, and ran a hand through her hair and god that was alluring. He wasn't going to do anything, but he was very well allowed to at least look. "Castle, can you give Alexis the keys? If something happens, I want you to run back here."

"She's the responsible one around here anyway," he said. "Hey, you know, if there are other survivors, maybe we should make a beacon. On the roof or something?"

"And hope that whatever those creatures are aren't also drawn to shiny lights?" Beckett held her hand out to convey the keys, apparently, when Richard could just hand them to Alexis himself.

"If they were drawn to shiny things, wouldn't they have swarmed last night?" Alexis pointed out. "And the daylight..."

"Then maybe we do want to go up to the roof and see what we can see." Castle didn't think it would be anything good, but hell. They might see the military coming in or something equally laden with good news. Godzilla would be a relief just then.

It might be an idea to draw or mark the roof if they didn't use fire. "Right, let's get ready. If nothing else, we can look for more ammunition maybe."

"I wish I'd brought more from the precinct." Never mind that the flight from the precinct to his apartment had been a hurried, panicked affair.

"We could look for shotguns maybe," Castle mused. "Still up with the machete back up plan, too."

"Okay, I'm ready," Martha said. "Smart casual it is."

"This would've been easier if Mr. Hendersen was a gun nut as well as a complete pervert," Beckett declared, moving to lead the way out of the door. "A quick trip up to the roof and we'll see what we can see."

"Take a sword then," he instructed Alexis and his mother. "It slowed him down a little." His mother and his daughter both mock saluted him, and picked up a sword. He was never more glad for their fun fill fights. "Let's go."

This wasn't fun, though. Fun was how he wanted to tackle it, but Beckett was tense as they stepped out into the hallway, and she just stood there for a moment, apparently getting her bearings before she headed for the door they'd blockaded.

All they had to do was go through, hope that maybe there was some rescue operation going on out there. Maybe the military, maybe something else, but there could be something going on.

The thought had occurred that if this was an attack, then there might be some sort of invasion. Perhaps that might even be welcomed after a while. If Canada wanted to choose right then to swoop down over the border and make them all listen to Canadian rock music a certain percent of the time, he supposed he could become accustomed to it. It was at least --

Beckett was walking forward, faster towards the stairwell door, but quietly, and that was when he heard the sound of a hand pounding against the door from the inside of the stairwell.

Another survivor, it had to be. It had to be, and he sped up, still trying to move quietly, when he saw a flash of bloody flesh in the vertical window that ran along the side of the door.

There wasn't time to tell his mother and Alexis to run before he heard the glass break. There just wasn't time.


End file.
